McCain and abortion rights

Scott Helman’s story in today’s Globe about Republican flip-floppers only provides a hint of Sen. John McCain’s tortured history with respect to abortion rights. Helman, whose intent is to show that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is not the only GOP flip-flopper, writes this about McCain:

McCain has also made conflicting comments about whether he believes Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, should be overturned. He told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999 that he did not support a repeal. But earlier this year, speaking to about 800 people in Spartanburg, S.C., he sought to assure conservatives that he did.

“I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned,” McCain said, according to the Associated Press.

That’s true, as far as it goes. But McCain did not wait eight years to renounce his 1999 remarks about Roe v. Wade, as you might be led to believe from Helman’s article; in fact, he started backpeddling almost immediately. Yet even though McCain had been a pro-life conservative for his entire political career, he was never quite able to reassure the right during the 2000 presidential campaign. Every time he opened his mouth about abortion, he committed a gaffe, defined by Michael Kinsley as when a politician accidentally tells the truth.

Consider, for example, a Robert Novak column from Aug. 26, 1999, shortly after the Chronicle reported McCain’s seeming change of heart. (I couldn’t find the original Chronicle article.) Novak began thusly:

Perhaps spending the day with rich, liberal northern California Republicans, who cannot win elections but contribute lots of money, had its impact on Sen. John McCain. That is the only plausible explanation for his telling the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board last week that “certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade.”

“It was a mistake, a terrible mistake,” a McCain adviser told me, contradicting his presidential campaign’s official line that the senator’s opposition to abortion had not diminished (using the old saw that his remarks were taken out of context). McCain spent the weekend trying to straighten out his position, and was still sculpting his language Tuesday, five days after his first remarks.

McCain’s mistake was explained privately by supporters as common to Republican politicians who don’t care much or know much about abortion. They try to please both grass roots, pro-life activists and the well-heeled, pro-choice campaign contributors, in abundance last Thursday when McCain addressed San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. But it is a special problem for McCain. Waffling on abortion confirms his developing image as the most liberal Republican candidate, which might give him momentary pleasure as runner-up, but deny him ultimate satisfaction as the nominee.

McCain’s abortion problem was no mere slip in San Francisco. His staff knew he blundered and sought quick correction. Appearing Sunday on CNN’s “Late Edition,” he no longer mentioned “the long term,” but still opposed getting rid of Roe v. Wade “immediately.” That didn’t work either. Later that day, he issued a written statement: “I have always believed in the importance of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, and as president I would work toward its repeal.”

But in both Sunday’s CNN interview and his written statement he repeated the canard that immediate repeal “would force thousands of young women to undergo dangerous and illegal operations.”

After much polishing by his staff, McCain sent a letter to the Right to Life Committee on Tuesday, affirming his desire to overturn Roe v. Wade, with not one word about “dangerous and illegal operations.”

I caught a glimpse of McCain’s attempts to have it both ways in February 2000, when I spent several days following McCain and George W. Bush around South Carolina in the run-up to their pivotal primary. Among other things, McCain was desperately trying to stress his conservative credentials after allowing himself to be portrayed as a moderate in libertarian New Hampshire, where he had handily defeated Bush.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quote McCain on abortion rights, so I can’t report exactly what he said. But I did write this, about an appearance McCain made on MSNBC’s “Hardball” at Clemson University: “McCain stressed his archconservative stand on social issues including gay marriage (‘it’s crazy’), abortion rights (he hopes the Supreme Court will someday overturn Roe v. Wade), and affirmative action (he’s staunchly against quotas).”

As I also wrote at the time, McCain was in trouble with the right for answering a hypothetical question about his 15-year-old daughter’s becoming pregnant by saying it would be her decision whether to have an abortion. He later “corrected” it by saying it would be a family decision.

The point of Helman’s story in today’s Globe is certainly valid: McCain and Rudy Giuliani, no less than Romney, have changed their minds on key issues as they seek the Republican nomination for president. Romney himself went after his two chief rivals earlier this week; Helman cites an Associated Press report in which Romney criticized McCain’s one-time opposition to overturning Roe v. Wade. The former governor said:

Senator McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts. Now he’s for them. He was opposed to ethanol. Now he’s for it. He said he was opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. Now he’s for overturning Roe v. Wade…. That suggests that he has learned from experience.

So why does the flip-flopper charge seem to stick to Romney more than it does to his rivals? Republican operative Roger Stone tells Helman:

I think you can certainly move your political positions within a career and even within a campaign, but when you trade in your old philosophy for a new one, and you did it overnight across the board, it smacks of opportunism.

Well, yeah. I don’t think I can recall a politician who has so conveniently and quickly done a 180 on a whole range of social and cultural issues in order to repackage himself for a different audience and a different audience. Yes, they all do it to some degree, but Romney is unique in his thoroughness, moving from socially moderate — even liberal — to ultraconservative virtually overnight.

McCain is another matter. Eight years ago he failed in his attempts simultaneously to appease conservatives and moderates. This time, he’s falling short in his efforts to move to the right and stay there. Of course, as McCain himself has said repeatedly, he probably has no chance unless the war in Iraq — his main issue — starts to look like a winner. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be much chance of that.

Patrick aide (still) assaults clerk

I thought this BostonNOW story was pretty funny when I first read about it on Blue Mass Group. But it’s even funnier that as I write this, on Saturday at 5:09 p.m., it still hasn’t been corrected.

No, BostonNOW, Governor’s Council member Marilyn Devaney is not an aide to Gov. Deval Patrick. She’s an elected official in her own right. Believe it or not.

Here’s the background.

Update: Sco reports as of 8:38 p.m. that it’s now gone.

Saturday in the Bronx

The problem with doing this today is that I won’t be able to do it tomorrow. But I don’t want to take any chances — after all, the Sox could lose this afternoon. Anyway …

From the New York Post:

Could Torre, who is in the final year of his contract, really be fired before April is finished? Is Torre the reason the starting rotation has melted in the first month and put an alarming workload on the bullpen? Is it Torre’s fault the lineup, so potent through 19 games, has gone 20 innings without an extra-base hit? [Obvious answers: yes, no and no.]

If Steinbrenner and the voices he is listening to believe the answers are “yes,” and if the Yankees get swept this weekend by the Red Sox, it’s not out of the realm of the possibility that The Boss could make a change.

Next up, the Daily News:

So where is the fight in this team? They didn’t just lose last night, the Red Sox embarrassed them in their own Stadium, to the point where fans mocked them with cheers when they finally got three outs in the ninth inning….

Is this the year? Is this the year that, for all of the talent on the roster, the pieces never fall into place? Is this the year that age and injuries and bad karma send the Yankees tumbling down the mountain?

Oh, let’s hope.

Finally, from the New York Times:

The season is too young to be slipping away from the Yankees. But it has gotten ugly quickly, with the team on its longest losing streak since 2000. The voices in the organization that grumble about Manager Joe Torre, whose contract expires after the season, will grow louder if the losses keep mounting.

Torre left Yankee Stadium at 12:40am this morning, much later than usual. He was nearly fired after last season, and if the Yankees are swept this weekend, his job security would be very much at risk. It is doubtful that General Manager Brian Cashman could save Torre’s job again.

Great stuff, eh? And wouldn’t it be wonderful if Torre got fired? The man is a great manager and a class act. Maybe the Sox could hire him as a bench coach. The Yankees should love looking into the other dugout and seeing that.

A Red Sock comeback

Let the DNA testing begin!

The biggest loser in the controversy over whether that was blood or paint on Curt Schilling’s Hall of Fame sock may be Tim Wakefield. Why? Orioles broadcaster Gary Thorne says it was Doug Mirabelli who told him it was paint. Mirabelli vehemently denies it. But it strikes me as more likely that Mirabelli shot his mouth off and now is horrified by what he said than it is that Thorne simply made it up. Depending on how Thorne handles the aftermath of his on-the-air comments last night, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Wakefield’s personal catcher run out of town.

Schilling fans please note: I’m not saying it was paint. Given what we know — that Schilling underwent temporary surgery to hold the tendon in place in his badly damaged ankle so that he could pitch in the 2004 postseason — then the weight of the evidence would suggest that it was, indeed, blood. (If you’ve got a strong stomach, look at this.)

Gordon Edes has the details in today’s Globe, and Edes’ story is currently number one on Boston.com’s “Most Popular Stories” list. Unfortunately, the hometown Baltimore Sun sheds little light on the subject today (other than to remind us that one of its own then-columnists raised the same question in 2004), running a story that credits the Globe.

This is too big to go away. Thorne and Mirabelli are both going to have to account for themselves. And even if Thorne is telling the truth about Mirabelli, he can’t justify casually passing along such an explosive accusation without making any effort to verify it.

As Bruce Allen writes, “Based on the reaction within the story from Red Sox players and management, this bears watching, and Thorne will likely find himself at the center of attention today.”

More: Why did the great Jim Palmer just sit there and say nothing? Oh, sorry — he said, “Yeah.”

Still more: Thorne now says it was all a “misunderstanding,” according to the Sun. I doubt it. But if that’s what it takes to put an end to this, fine.

Lydon on the move?

When UMass Lowell announced last October that it would stop funding Christopher Lydon’s public radio program, “Open Source,” you had to wonder what the long-term effect would be. Though UMass wasn’t Lydon’s sole source of support, all indications were that the university was his major backer.

Still, “Open Source” kept chugging along, and nearly two months ago the program received a $250,000 MacArthur grant for its Internet component.

But now the Globe reports that Lydon is talking with Bloomberg Radio about a New York-based commercial show. Nothing on the “Open Source” Web site, but this bears watching.

Update: Mary McGrath, Lydon’s longtime producer, says not to worry. (Thanks to this alert but pseudonymous Media Nation reader.)

Thank God we’re a two-newspaper town*

The Globe knows what we need, but the Herald knows what we want. In today’s Globe, Barbara Matson reports that Boston College women’s hockey coach Tom Mutch has resigned over “allegations of inappropriate conduct with a student-athlete.” Oh, yes. We get the picture.

Well, actually, we didn’t — at least, we didn’t until we turned to the Herald, which makes the Mutch resignation the subject of its front-page splash: “SEX SCANDAL ICES COACH.” Inside, we learn this, from reporter Laurel Sweet:

Hockey East Coach of the Year Tom Mutch, 39, who’s married and whose wife just had a baby, abruptly stepped down hours after the Herald began making inquiries to authorities at the Heights.

Sexually graphic text messages that BC hockey star [name omitted by Media Nation], 19, allegedly wrote to Mutch were discovered on a cell phone [she] gave to a teammate, neglecting to delete them first, sources said.

One source familiar with the messages described them as “filthy. They were very sexual in nature.”

And, oh yeah, there’s this: “Sources stressed that BC’s probe had yet to find an actual sexual relationship between Mutch and [the student].”

I’m under no illusions about protecting the 19-year-old student’s identity — I’m withholding it as a protest, and a rather futile one at that. I like reading about sex-related scandals as much as anyone, and the fact that BC officials are taking this so seriously means that Mutch is definitely fair game.

But to blast this on the front, and to identify the young woman at the center of this, seems way out of line, especially since all the facts are not yet in. Sweet deserves credit for breaking this story, but her editors blew it way out of proportion.

Update: The Heights, Boston College’s student newspaper, is reporting the student’s name as well. So I’ll concede that I may be alone on this one.

*With apologies, as always, to Boston Magazine, which used to have great fun with this feature.

David Halberstam

David Halberstam died with his boots on. The 73-year-old legend was killed in a car accident near San Francisco yesterday while he on his way to interview former NFL star Y.A. Tittle for his next book.

May I make a confession? I’ve never read his best-known book, “The Best and the Brightest,” his exposé of the American policy failures that led to the quagmire in Vietnam.

I do, however, vividly recall plowing through “The Powers That Be,” his four-way biography of media giants Henry Luce, the founder of Time magazine; Donald and Katharine Graham, publishers of the Washington Post; Otis Chandler, who inherited the Los Angeles Times and made it great; and William Paley, the CBS founder who made its news division a paragon of excellence but never quite seemed comfortable with it. I read it in the summer of 1979, right after I’d graduated from college. “The Powers That Be” was — and is — and astounding piece of reportage and historical research, and it made an indelible impression on the way I think about the media.

In November 2001 I interviewed Halberstam for a piece I was writing on liberalism after 9/11. I remember his being somewhat gruff and abrupt, especially when he realized I had not read his then-new book “War in a Time of Peace.” I think I broke into a sweat. The story I was reporting was not about Halberstam or his book; I was just looking for a few insights from someone I greatly admired. As I recall, he warmed up a bit, but I was relieved when the interview came to its rather uncomfortable end.

Somewhere in my house, unread, is a copy of Halberstam’s “The Teammates,” about Red Sox players Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky. I will soon rectify that. It goes without saying that Halberstam will be misssed. But for him to be cut down in his prime — at an age when most people are retired — seems especially unfair, not just to him, but to us.

The Northeastern Globe

Congratulations to Michael Naughton and Hailey Heinz, two Northeastern journalism students whose investigative report on a dubious anti-gun initiative by Boston Mayor Tom Menino appears on the front page of today’s Boston Globe.The mayor has proposed suspending the driver’s licenses of gun offenders; but Naughton and Heinz found that few gun criminals even have licenses.

Naughton and Heinz did their work as part of an investigative-reporting class led by my NU colleague Walter Robinson, the Globe’s Pulitzer-winning retired Spotlight Team editor.